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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23309260">Man's Greatest Sin</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/brute/pseuds/brute'>brute</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Monster (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>...this is going to be a weird fic, Amnesia, Crossdressing, Eventual Romance, Identity Issues, M/M, Mental Instability, Past Child Abuse, Post-Canon, Recovered Memories</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 14:14:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,482</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23309260</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/brute/pseuds/brute</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, the monster woke up. It went to see its other half, but the other monster was happy without it. It went to the place it last remembered, but no memories were found there. "Where are my memories?" it thought.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Johan Liebert/Jan Suk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Man's Greatest Sin</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He woke up. Amid the constant beeping monitoring his life, against all odds after lying in wait for a year, he woke up. He awoke like he did everything else in life: calmly, rationally, slowly. But he began to listen. Dr. Tenma’s soft voice, his startled gasp, the light tapping of his shoes as he walked away. His fingers twitched. He tried to reach out as he heard the door open, and then softly click shut, yet nothing moved, naught but the outward stretch of a single finger. He felt so heavy, as though he were wading through the muddy and rain-slick streets of Ruhenheim still. He waited, lying, just waiting for his eyes to open; then the light penetrated his eyelids and made him screw them shut all the tighter. A blinding white light that seemed to endlessly persist now that he had first seen it. He opened his eyes again, blinked once, twice, wondering if hellfire or heavenly radiance scorched his eyes. The blank ceiling told him it was neither. He tried his hand again, first twitching fingers, curling and uncurling, then straining against the weight of his arm. He remembered Dr. Tenma, in this room just moments before, and his arm shot forward, reaching, yearning, for something, someone, that had already left him. Like startling from a nightmare, yet the nothingness of sleep felt more like his final rest. Perhaps he was waking into the nightmare. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He staggered out of bed, nearly collapsing once on his feet. His muscles quivered underneath his weight worse than they ever had prior; he was never particularly strong, not like Anna. Nina. Her. Still, his racing mind refused to be cowed by physical restraints, for a million things he thought of in a handful of seconds. Unwanted? Monster? His name? Her name? He paused. Why wasn’t he dead? He brought shuddering fingertips to his head, thumbing through hair until he found a scar, just slightly raised skin from ages ago. Then he find another, just slightly raised skin yet still oddly sensitive. Ah. Three years of hunting him through blood and tears and Herr Dr. Tenma remained unable to take a life, only save them. Three years of agonizing memories and his sister remained unable to hate him, only to forgive him. Wetness dribbled down his cheeks as he gazes at the open window, the breeze drying the tears rolling down his face. He wants to see his sister.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>He observes her graduation. Whereas the other attendees might feel pride, nothing inside of him twitches at the sight of her receiving her diploma. It’s only what she deserves, but he feels an odd contentedness when her face lights up in a smile. If this is what would make her happy, then he concedes. When everyone stands to embrace their sons and daughters, he takes his exit and wonders what she’ll do next, where she’ll go. With her skill, it could be anywhere and anything. Two day later, she’s gone. The next, he finds her next tucked away in a cozy apartment located in Düsseldorf. She finds herself a job working at a local law firm, one of impressive importance yet not of such a massive, corporate scale that she’ll find herself drowning in expendability. She’s a prosecutor, and he notices himself chuckle at the notion; his baby sister, always so forgiving, he wonders if she’d be better suited to defense. He notices just how familiar she looks. She wears the same coats and blazers with sweaters, a taste uncannily similar to his own if a bit cheaper. More colorful. He finds that color suits her, whereas it only makes him more gaunt. She behaves like the average working adult, almost to the point of comicality. Yet he notices an abnormality in her schedule. Approximately once every other month she visits a house in the suburbs, one that he comes to learn houses the good doctor, but only when he finds it fit to return home. It pleases him to know Dr. Tenma maintains a watchful eye over his sister, even when he will be no longer able.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wants to reach out to her. Just like in Heidelberg, a dazzling prince to drown her in a sea of her very favorite flowers, so sweet yet never able to compete with her. She had fainted then and he’s sure she’ll faint now, now that she knows him. Of him. As much as she wants to forgive him, she hasn’t been able to stand him since that night with the Lieberts. He is tired of reaching out his hand. So he packs up and moves on to Ruhenheim. He’s not quite sure why, perhaps he expects to find Franz Bonaparta still running a hotel, feigning sheep’s “baa”s with wolf’s muzzle. All he finds is a ghost town. Corpses had been cleared from the streets but so had all signs of life. No one wanted to live in a wasteland. He walks through the streets like a ghost, takes up residence in the vampire’s mansion. He spends all day staring at the unfinished portraits of two fictional twins. He can remember her smiling like that. When they were adopted by the Lieberts, he recalled her anxious fidgeting — he had offered her the world and her face had lit up in the same smile he sees now. He doesn’t know if he’s ever smiled that way. There’s a stranger in these sketches of Anna; portrait upon portrait of the fictional Anna and her smiling twin. He doubts there ever was such a brother. When he next packs up, he provides extra storage for the canvases to live in. And then he takes a train to Prague. </span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>“I’m home,” he says into the empty room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Welcome back,” he says. His legs are failing underneath him, yet his mind remains empty. I’m home. I’m home. I’m home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Welcome back,” he says again. He isn’t quite sure why. The scent of smoke in the air is cloying. His eyes sting with the heat of fire. “Welcome back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His knees hit the floor and he feels his hands pulling at his hair. He hadn’t cut it. So long now, he watches his hands tug on it. He watches the hands of all those people caress his hair, such a pretty child, so pretty, so perfect. His hair. Her hair? Sister’s hair? She was there, she said. Not him. I’m home. “Welcome back.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He staggers out of the room, swallowing in lungfuls of clean air, not stifled with smoke. He can’t remember. He winds his hands through his hair, thinking; he doesn’t know, but his body does. His lungs are suffocated and his chest tight, corneas burnt with the heat of flames. He expects the door handle on the way out of the building to feel hot. It doesn’t. The fresh breeze is welcomed, cooling traces of sweat that he hadn’t been aware were building on his body. He stands there for a moment, feeling himself calm down from agitated temperatures. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anna!” someone calls, and he feels his stomach shake. “Anna!” again, and his lip quivers. “Anna! I haven’t seen you in forever!” he turns, and there before him is a face he thought he’d never see again, except in the occasional newspaper clippings. But there was no “WANTED” plastered above the detective’s head, just an oblivious grin on his face. “Wow, you look… different.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was Anna. A hand touches his hair, combs through the strands, long enough now to trail down his back. His clothes, a sweater with a blazer on top, dress pants, loafers. Masculine for Anna, but it would work. Was he truly so slight that he could emulate a woman’s shape without all the feminine touches to further sway the mind in that direction? “Detective Suk, it’s nice to see you. I bleached my hair and…” he shifts his stance, shuffles his legs closer together and sweetens his smile, “I haven’t been feeling very well lately.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm?” He watches the detective’s eyes fixate on his hair, still caught between his fingers. “Oh! You’re right, it’s a little lighter. And you do look sort of pale… Um, so,” the detective’s arm moves up, brought behind his head with hand burrowed in hair. He’s expressing nervousness, Anna notes. “They told me what happened. With your brother. You know, I… I knew you would never do that kind of thing! I mean, you were at every scene, but your brother… you were looking for him. Why didn’t you just tell me?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He puts a hand on Suk’s arm, brings it down from its place. He feels his face move, eyebrows brought higher and shutting his lids to flash a grin. Anna is always so sweet and kind. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to trouble you with it, but it seems that didn’t work. Can we go somewhere more private?”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i think johan/jan has the potential to be a really nice ship so long as you aren't weird about it. so here's my best attempts at making it not weird. </p><p>i'm trying super hard to not make things too ooc but given that this is a ship fic for monster. it probably will be a little</p></blockquote></div></div>
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